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Thursday, April 21, 2011

Tim Tam Cake

Hiya! After all the pretty Eastertreats I shared with you last week, I'm now giving you a lumpy brown cake. But this is no ordinary chocolate cake. Does it look familiar to you? It is my homage to my favourite Arnott's biscuit, the ever-awesome Tim Tam. If you've never had a Tim Tam from Australia, you're missing out. If you don't like Tim Tams, I'm sorry but we can't be friends. These biscuits are one of the few chocolate treats that I am powerless to resist, I can eat an entire packet of Tim Tams in one sitting. (Which is why I hardly ever buy them anymore. I ate half a packet while I was making this cake!)

So as I was saying, this is no ordinary chocolate cake. It is a Tim Tam cake. It looks like a giant Tim Tam AND it has a pack of Tim Tams hidden inside it. Insanity. Also delicious. And easy!! Ever since I made my Iced Vovo Cake for Australia Day, I've had demands for all kinds of other Arnott's inspired cakes. I decided to save my Tim Tam cake attempt for Tomred's birthday (Happy Birthday for Saturday Tomred!), and I am quite surprised by the results. The idea was simple enough, chocolate cake with a butter icing filling and chocolate ganache drizzled on top, but I was super worried the cake would just be far too rich and heavy. So I decided to use a very light and fluffy chocolate sponge recipe for the cake, which made it more like the light chocolate biscuits you find in a Tim Tam. It worked perfectly, and made the cake soooo much lighter and less rich than my usual chocolate cake recipe. The thin layer of gooey chocolate ganache, and the slightly denser chocolate icing in the middle give this cake a whole range of different textures. It really surprised me how much easier this cake was to eat just because of the lighter sponge.

Now I realise my outer layer of chocolate is a bit darker than an original Tim Tam, so it looks more like a dark Tim Tam. I couldn't help it, I didn't buy enough milk chocolate! But the ganache worked great, as it started to thicken up I spread it all over the top of the cake and used a spatula to create the little ripples in the surface that you always see on a Tim Tam. Definitely not going to win any awards for being pretty or delicate, but it will make any Tim Tam lover (or chocolate lover) extremely happy. I didn't realise the biscuits in Tim Tam are actually malted, or I would have added some Milo or malted milk powder to the cake mixture too! Feel free to do it. Anywhoo I'm so excited to be having this super long weekend off to do absolutely nothing as I am completely sleep deprived, I hope everyone has a happy and safe Easter and Anzac Day. Oh and it seemed like good timing to be to making this cake for Anzac Day too! I dare someone to make this and do a giant Tim Tam slam.

Tim Tam Cake(Chocolate sponge recipe from Gourmet Traveller, serves 10)NOTE: To beginner bakers, if you are unfamiliar with sponge recipes you might want to read up on some tips on how to make a successful sponge cake before starting. Gourmet Traveller has a great article.If you prefer a higher cake to icing ratio, double the quantities below for the cake batter. You can also substitute the cake recipe for any light chocolate cake that you are more comfortable making.
4 large eggs
110g (½ cup) caster (superfine) sugar
65g cornflour (cornstarch)
35g (¼ cup) Good quality cocoa powder
1 tbsp plain flour
1 tsp cream of tartar
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
50g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

For the cake filling:
100g butter, removed from the fridge 30 minutes before starting
150g chocolate, melted (I used semi-sweet, you can also use milk)
3 cups icing sugar, sifted
1 tbsp milk
Optional: 1 packet of Tim Tam biscuits, crushed(If you wanted to mix things up a bit so it's not just all chocolate, you could mix a cup of raspberries into this icing, or maybe use mint chocolate instead?)

For the chocolate ganache topping:
300ml pouring cream (min. 35% milk fat pure cream)
400g milk chocolate (I only had 200g milk so I had to use some dark, which is why my ganache is a bit darker than I would prefer for a tim tam)

Line two 17x27cm rectangular slice/brownie tins, or one larger sheet cake tin with non-stick baking paper. (I actually only had one small tin, so I split all the ingredients in half and baked two separate cakes one after the other and it worked great!) Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F). Whisk eggs and sugar in an electric mixer until thick and pale (5-6 minutes, go nuts and don't underwhip). Sift over cornflour, cocoa, flour, cream of tartar and bicarb soda, fold in with spatula. Fold in butter, spoon into prepared tin. Bake in centre of oven until the centre of the cake springs back when lightly pressed (10-12 minutes). Turn onto baking paper covered wire rack and cool completely. (If you baked one large cake, cut into two equal sized rectangular cakes)

To prepare chocolate icing filling, beat butter light and fluffy and then gradually add sifted icing sugar and beat until smooth and pale. Add melted chocolate and milk and beat until smooth. (You can adjust the amount of milk you add to get the icing to the texture you want) Spread icing over the top of one of the cakes (Note: you don't need to use all of it, I made it about 1-2cm thick), and leave space to (if you want) place tim tams along the centre of the icing. (I saw a great tip from someone who made it, that it's even better if you crush up the tim tams before you put them in the middle to make it a lot easier to cut the cake later.) Sandwich other cake on top of the icing and biscuits. To prepare the chocolate ganache topping, break up chocolate into small pieces and place in a large mixing bowl. Slowly heat cream in a small saucepan. Just as it starts to come to the boil, remove from the heat and cool for a couple minutes. Pour hot cream over chocolate and set aside 10 minutes to allow chocolate to melt. Mix cream and chocolate together until smooth using a whisk, then cool (I placed mine in the fridge for about 15 mins) until it reaches room temperature and thickens. Pour over the top of the cake, using a spatula to ensure the ganache covers all the top and sides of the cake (the excess will drip off everywhere so make sure you lay down some baking paper to catch the drips). Chill in the fridge until the ganache sets, then peel off the bottom baking paper and serve cake at room temperature. P.S. I used a big cookie cutter to cut out a 'bite' of the cake, which I really liked the look of. The cake looks less Tim Tam-like when it's whole!

Edit: You can also see a version of this idea in Australian Good Taste Magazine, it has an easier chocolate cake recipe and they've called it a 'Timtastic Cake'. What a co-inky-dink. (And also on Taste.com.au as a Tim Tam Cake)

Doesn't matter if your cake is slightly darker in color because OMG when I saw the cake the thought MEGA-TIM TAM came to mind! This is something I'll definitely try soon cos I LOVE timtam to bits too (although it's more ex here where I'm at) and I just love the ones with mint inside :D

I've only recently discovered the wonderful Tim Tam's! An Aussie friend of mine sent me a care package with the treats and my family devoured them. Your cake it another ideal way to use them, well...that is if you have any left over!

OMG this is amazing! I know what you mean about not buying time tams anymore, have one and you've gotta have the rest of the packet. I think I know what to make for my tim tam crazed friend now. Thanks so much for sharing this!

My daughter returned from Australia with several packages of Tim Tams...I have got to make this cake for her for her birthday in December; even if all I can find are the Pepperidge Farm variety. She will be so excited...thank you, great idea!

wow this looks soo amazing.. would love to try it out but Tim tams are not freely available over here and when they are they are too expensive. But will try asking my uncle to send some for me. would love to try this out.

Oh damn my diet! This is amazing. No chocolate biscuit can beat a Tim Tam. They used to sell these other Arnott's chocolate biscuits in Singapore that had fruit and nut in them. They were really good too, but disappeared some years ago. I wonder if they still have them in Australia.

Sarah - I'm not too sure, you may have to just do it by trial and error! I wouldn't change any of the amounts of flour or baking soda, maybe take some of the cocoa powder out, like half of it and replace it with the milo? You might also want to grind up the milo in a food processor or mortar and pestle as it is so much coarser than cocoa powder. Good luck, I hope it works out!!

Sarah - Fantastic! I think you did a great job and Happy Birthday for last week! I'm sorry you had issues with the ganache, if it helps I'd say to break up your chocolate into smaller pieces next time, and use a whisk to help melt the last small bits of chocolate. Also if you let your ganache cool and thicken a bit more then hopefully it won't soak into the cake as much! I hope you had fun making it though!

thanks so much for the feedback! I still have a lot to learn but I keep getting better (I hope!) I did have a lot of fun. I'm hoping to make the mint slice cake for my husband's birthday in August. I'll let you know how I go :)

So, I followed the recipe and it looks NOTHING like the picture... Imagine a cake disguised as a crepe... WHAT THE HECK! Disappointment to the MAX!!! What went wrong?! Does this recipe actually yield ANYTHING that even resembles the picture you posted with it?!

Anonymous - are you Australian? I only ask because our tablespoon and cup sizes are different. We use a 20ml tablespoon, and a 250ml cup. Perhaps this is where you struck difficulties? I also agree with Stephcookie that your post comes across as a little aggressive.

Anonymous - I'm very sorry your cake didn't turn out well. This recipe has been remade by countless people successfully, and I have reused it myself with no problems at all. The cake recipe originates from Gourmet Traveller (an Australian food magazine), which means that it has been properly recipe tested and successfully used by many people before I even laid eyes on it. It is a sponge cake, which can be quite delicate and tricky if you are not familiar with making sponges. If your cakes turned out flat, then you probably didn't whip the egg whites for long enough, or lost too much air out of the mixture when combining the eggwhites into the batter. You could try reading up on some tips on how to make sponges successfully, or substitute it with a chocolate cake recipe that you are more familiar with before you go and rudely attack the recipe posted above.

i think you just made my husband's year! we are american but his one year living in AUS has created an Aussie heart for life. We are obsessed with tim Tams and will drive 3 hours to buy a package for 10 dollars! We are so making this cake for his birthday!! thank you so much for sharing! (found it on pinterest)

From America. I lived in New South Wales for a couple of years in the mid-nineties. About a year ago, an American company started making these (they are either imported or an exact replica, but the packaging is totally American.) Anyway. Favorite. Biscuit. Ever. I've even taught my ankle-biters to say "Bikkies" instead of "cookies." My mouth is watering just thinking about them.

This cake is amazing! I just made it for my daughter's birthday. It took me awhile to convert the measurements into cups/tablespoons! I made it in 2 round pans so it looks more like a Ding Dong but tastes like a Tim Tam. YUM!

thank you! thank you! thank you! I hate cooking, baking and generally speaking any action that involves me and food other then eating, yet I made this cake yesterday for a our HanuChristmas party and it was awesome! really... the belle of the ball :)

I live in the United States and have never heard of Tim Tams. Your cake looks delicious and I would love the try it. Are Tim Tams chocolate-covered shortbread cookies? Also, what is caster sugar? I think I can convert your measurements. Your cake looks fabulous. Thanks for answering the questions.

sherrikw - Google is your friend! 'A Tim Tam is composed of two layers of chocolate malted biscuit, separated by a light chocolate cream filling, and coated in a thin layer of textured chocolate.' Caster sugar is superfine white sugar in the US.

elyse - I don't have a fan in my oven, but if you're using fan-forced it should be fine at the same temperature so long as you keep an eye on it as the baking time might be shorter. It's hard to say, every oven is different!

Google is your friend! It could have answered all your questions and saved you from having to read all the comments and posting your own. Also, if you had read the first paragraph of my post, I linked to the wikipedia page for Tim Tams which would also have answered your questions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Tam

I just made this cake today for my dad's birthday. I have got to say this cake is just amazing. The sponge is beautiful and light, the cake filling tastes exactly like Tim Tam's and my brother and Dad said it was the best cake they have ever tasted and I have been baking for years so thanks so much Steph for this winner recipe!!

I made this cake and since I am not a baker I made a few mistakes. For the filling I think I should have whipped the butter alone until light and then add the sugar. Also, to melt chocolate for the cake batter pop the crumbled chocolate in the microwave for about 30 seconds and then stir quickly to melt.

Anonymous - Reading the recipe over, you're absolutely right it's a lot easier to beat the butter alone first before adding the icing sugar. I've updated the recipe to reflect that. Though, did you mean the melted chocolate for the icing, not for the cake batter? If so, that's also a neat trick I use when I'm too lazy to melt it over a double boiler :) thanks for the feedback!

Oh my... this is going on my list to cook. The worst thing is I am trying to lose weight and this isn't going to help, then again a little taste won't hurt I will just have to work harder at the gym and burn the calories off. My husband thanks you a million times as he LOVES tim tams and yes he can also polish off a whole packet of tim tams in one sitting as well (a hoover experience). So I will be trying this in the next couple of days.

I have never been to Australia, unfortunately, and have never had a Tim Tam, again, unfortunately... but being a chocolate-holic, I would love to try this recipe. Do you know what the conversions would be for an American recipe?

Yes, you can see in the second last photo that I put them in the middle of the filling. You don't even need to have them at all, I just thought it would be a fun surprise. Other people have crushed the biscuits and put them in the filling to make it easier to crush. I guess you could cover the cake in them but then it wouldn't really look like a giant tim tam anymore...

Hello!Firstly, I cannot WAIT to try this one out!! I was wondering though, is just 1 tablespoon of plain flour used in the entire sponge? I am a sponge virgin and so I'm not sure if this is normal! I look forward to hearing from you!!

They are usually about 3cm thick, if they are a little thin you might need to whip the eggs a little longer and make sure not to lose too much volume when folding the batter. Hopefully it will still taste good even without the height though!

Thank you so much for this great recipe and wonderful blog. So very inspiring! I made an attempt at this cake this weekend and was very pleased with the results :) http://plentyofpastimes.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/tim-tam-cake.html

Just wondering, what do you recommend for storing the cake if (shock horror) there is any left?

So I had a house warming yesterday, and the Tim Tam cake was the big ticket item on the bill. It was the first time I'd used the oven to bake a cake, and the first time I'd made a sponge, so it could have been a disaster considering I started baking it four hours before people started turning up - but success!Greatest issue was moving the cake from the baking paper and tray onto a serving board. I was concerned the sponge wouldn't handle the weight well and would start breaking through the wire tray. If I had a tray with more wires this could have been easily averted. Alternatively, if I'd constructed the cake on the serving board and just mopped up the excess chocolate, it would have been fine.I crushed up a whole pack of original Tim Tams and piled them on top of the chocolate cream filling like a lasagne. Next time I'll actually mix them into the cream filling and probably only use half a pack of biscuits - the filling was really thick, and when I came to the chocolate ganache, it didn't stick to the dry crushed biscuits.If I'd had time to do it a few hours in advance, and room in the fridge, I'd recommend setting in the fridge for two hours before serving, and use a knife dipped in boiling water to cut it.Thinking about doing this again for Christmas, perhaps with the Mint Tim Tams for a different kick in the centre. I can make the components the day before and transport it unassembled, then construct it on site.Thanks for the great recipe, and for tempting me to make a sponge! Definitely a hit at the house warming.

Oh my god! I just discovered this recipe. I studied abroad in Australia (Brisbane) while I was in college and I became absolutely addicted to TimTams. Definitely had them probably every day (oops!) and always did the straw trick with my tea :) SO good!!!

HELP PLEASE! Wanted to make this for a Christmas party but got stuck on the cake part of the recipe -

The ingredients list has butter in the icing part but not in the cake part yet in the instr5ustions, it clearly says to FOLD IN BUTTER - how much butter? And why fold it in? I've never folded butter into a completed batter before...

I've been looking forward to making this cake FOREVER! I've been hoarding boxes of Tim Tams to make it for ANZAC Day this year. (I live in the States, and it's been impossible to find them this year - picked several packs up in NYC and Montreal.) (I know I only need one box for this but c'mon, who's gonna buy just one box?)

Two quick questions - is the Dutch-process cocoa vital, or can I use regular cocoa and achieve the same consistency? (I'm not sure that I can find it here.) And I'm going to have to bake one cake at a time as well, did you leave the remaining batter out or put it in the fridge while the first was baking?

The Dutch-process is not vital, regular cocoa should work just fine. I left the remaining batter out in the mixing bowl because I baked the second cake straight after taking out the first one. Since the baking time is so short you can get away with it. If you think you might have a longer break between baking the cakes I would probably keep it in the fridge.

Great recipe!!Made today for a surprise birthday party tomorrow!Not very experienced with sponge and first attempt didn't rise well so made again but doubled and made recipe twice rather than splitting in two tins. Going to back a couple of sponge cream rolls with first attempt! Haha!Filling and ganache worked perfectly and can't wait to try it tomorrow.Wonderful blog and keep up your amazing baking!!Sarah :)Ps. Pictures on my Instagram - sarahnd

OH my golly gosh. Your cake seriously looks EXACTLY like a Tim Tam, only... ginormous (perfect for my 'only one biscuit' policy!). Love the fact that this actually has biscuits inside it as well as resembling the famed Tim Tam. And yes, I love those addictive little chocolate covered sandwich biscuits. So hopefully we can be friends... until we fight over the last Tim Tam ;)

I just baked this cake and realised as I was pouring it into to tins that there wasn't enough. I should have doubled the mixture to an 8 egg sponge for 2 slice tins. I made the TimTam cake recipe on the taste website last week but the cake part was a bit dry so thought I would give this one a whirl. The last recipe was at least double the size of these ones, so please keep that in mind when making. The texture is nice and light though so I think with the adjustment it would be perfect. I can't be bothered remaking it so it will have to do. I made it fully gluten free for my sister after she saw the one I made last week (not gluten free), so I just used all gluten free plain flour for the corn+plain in the recipe and I also added a heaped tablespoon of milk powder to give a malty flavour as both malted milk powder and milo contain gluten. Obviously I will also be omitting the biscuits from the middle too but I don't think she'll mind :)

Hi Rachel, the note at the top of the recipe mentions that you can double the recipe. The original recipe makes quite a thin sponge but it was still enough when I made it. Your adjustments may have affected the volume of the final batter as well.

I made this for my husbands birthday yesterday and he lost his mind. He ate about a third of it by himself then took it to work and they all loved it too. He said it tasted exactly like a tim tam. Another happy customer here :)

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